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Freezing temperatures in April will be fatal for wildlife

2 April, 2013 - 10:27 -- John Burton

The long, bitterly cold winter of 2013 will have catastrophic impacts on Britain’s wildlife. Hedgehogs and bats may well suffer irreversible declines because of the weather. Hibernating mammals rely on stored fat to see them through the winter, and once this is used up, they die. It’s now April, and with more overnight frosts forecast, many hibernating mammals will either die while torpid, or simply starve when they wake up.

Of course most species are adapted to occasional dips in population, but in the 21st century almost all bat populations are in serious trouble. Gone are the days when I remember visiting Godstone Pond, on the outskirts of London with several hundred bats feeding on a summer’s evening – now a handful is all one will see.

I don’t want to sound alarmist, but I do think that we are ‘fiddling while Rome burns’. The environmental crisis is much more serious than almost any one realises. I have been watching wildlife for more than 60 years, and can remember what it should be like – and even then it had been seriously depleted.

Just because the predictions of Erlich and others were not spot on, does not mean the problem has gone away. Species galore are careering towards extinction, and ecosystem collapse is on the horizon.

Food security for one single species (humans) is in ever increasing danger of break down when - not if - a major environment disaster occurs. Volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, solar storms, meteor impacts, pandemics are all events that will cause the collapse of infrastructure, and civilization as we know it. And all because we are so disassociated from nature, and so dependent on technology.

So when are people going to wake up and realise that the extremes of weather we have been experiencing in the last few years are not down to 'Mother Nature'? The weather is being manipulated - seriously. There is the technology to move the jet stream wherever they choose. The giant corporations will be glad to see the back of small farms and anything that contributes to nature's supply of our food. HAARP is killing birds and other wildlife on a worldwide basis. Chemtrails are poisoning our soils and killing the plants. Pesticides have virtually got rid of the bees. We all need to try to DO SOMETHING before we are all wiped out as a species!

Thanks for the feedback. I often feel that what we at the WLT are doing is a sort of modern 'Noah's Ark'. Providing little refuges for wildlife to survive for the future. It's not much but it is something. If everyone did a lirttle something it might add up to something significant. But we can't just do nothing.

I would love if people stopped blending conspiracy theories like chemtrails with such important topics. Disrespecting facts and science is not adding anything to the very legit and scientifically sound claims made by conservationists. It rather risks being put into the same shady corner.